


Closer Already

by Stariceling



Category: Toriko (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Back rubs, Bathing/Washing, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Prompt Fic, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6443677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stariceling/pseuds/Stariceling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coco invites Sunny over with the intention of starting to close the gap that has grown between them. He should have expected that Sunny would insist on moving at his own pace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer Already

**Author's Note:**

> For Blue Bird! Prompts from the nonsexual intimacy meme thing: [Finding the other wearing their clothes] or [Shoulder rubs] or [Taking a bath together]
> 
> Let it be known she has also done [the best fanart for this fic.](http://0blue-bird0.tumblr.com/post/140865145876/toriko-nonsexual-intimacy-prompt-fic-sunnycoco)
> 
> This would take place really early in the series, since this is the sort of thing I’ve wanted to write for them for a long time.

Coco found he was actually looking forward to company when he invited Sunny to share his home (and his kitchen) after a successful hunt. He hadn’t realized he could miss the feeling of someone else sharing the same space until it was abruptly there and abruptly gone again as Toriko interrupted his life, and Sunny was very good at claiming empty spaces with both his feelers and his outsized confidence. 

Since this was Sunny, Coco had prepared himself for a certain amount of inevitable noise and drama. One thing he had not prepared himself for was finding Sunny wearing his clothes. It wasn’t a surprise that the first thing Sunny wanted to do when they arrived, both soaking wet and covered in silt and ash, was wash and change into clean clothes, but Coco had assumed he had brought his own.

Sunny didn’t say anything. He just watched Coco cooking, one hand on his hip.

Once they’d pried the volcanic scallop open it only needed to simmer, wrapped in a packet of specific herbs, at a precise temperature, until the bitterness of toxic metals had leached out. Coco had enough to occupy him and would not be distracted by something Sunny seemed to find perfectly innocuous. Sunny was the one who overreacted to things like this, Coco reminded himself. If he wasn’t reacting then Coco certainly wasn’t going to.

Sunny had somehow found a black dress shirt, which he had apparently decided suited him better than Coco’s tight, everyday clothes. It was too big, but in a way that was more ill-fitting than cutely oversized. Sunny wasn’t that much smaller than him. It barely hung low enough to preserve his modesty (what modesty, Coco had to ask himself).

“Do you need pants?” slipped out after several minutes of breathing unpleasantly tangy steam.

“Yours look so horrible on me it would bring down the quality of the meal. This is passable.” Sunny shifted, and out of the corner of his eye Coco noticed a thousand tiny threads of light as he tried to adjust the shirt from all points at once. “I didn’t even know you owned a nice suit. What would it take for you show up in that for once? Even Toriko can be bothered to dress up for a meal sometimes,” Sunny complained, and the world slid back into its proper place. Mostly.

Sunny hovered and kept up one-sided conversation while he kept an eye on their dinner. Coco didn’t think the way Sunny was plucking at the fabric would leave a mark even he could see. If he ever had the occasion to wear that shirt again, would he think of the indirect touch of skin brushing skin? Sunny obviously didn’t think about it that way, or he wouldn’t be wearing it. They were closer than they had been in years, but not that much closer.

Sunny swept his hair into an elegant updo for dinner, leaving only the glints of a handful of feelers, just enough for how he saw the world.

Coco never saw him with his hair up. He never saw Sunny when they weren’t hunting or fighting.

Sunny complained energetically about the atmosphere of Coco’s dinning room, about the lighting and the decor, and about the wind when Coco offered that he could eat outside.

When they ate the complaints abruptly fell off. There was no need for much beyond exclamations of appreciation. At one point Sunny abruptly put one hand over his face as if his pleasure was somehow unbecoming. Coco was pleased to see it anyway, the crinkle of his eyes and the faint glint of blissful tears.

The world remained normal after dinner. Sunny insisted on a real bath, and claimed the bath for himself first. Coco cleaned up to create a suitable time gap before washing himself.

He thought he’d timed things correctly, but when he finished Sunny was still sprawled out, relaxed in his new domain. His hair remained up in the sleek twists of a living Gordian knot.

“Aren’t you coming?” Sunny tilted his head back, as if Coco’s reservation annoyed him.

They never bathed together. Since childhood that was something Coco always did by himself. Sunny had been the one to bring it up, too. They all knew exactly what was happening and why, but Sunny had been the only one to voice it. Even if they were adults now and Coco was confident in his control of his poison, it was hard to see that changing.

Except Sunny shifted one shoulder impatiently, not so much making room for Coco as pointing out that there was plenty of room for him already.

Even if bathing was not a thing they did together, if Coco had only expected Sunny to claim any unclaimed spaces for a while, not. . . whatever he was doing now, Coco slipped into the hot water beside Sunny. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back with a sigh, and caught the pleased smirk that flitted over Sunny’s lips. All those years–not close together but moving around each other–and he wasn’t sure if Sunny still underestimated the clarity of his peripheral vision or simply didn’t care what he saw.

Either way, they were closer than they’d been in years, and that felt good. Coco was more than satisfied with this result.

Coco was rubbing his knuckles mindlessly along his shoulder when Sunny surprised him again.

“Are you sore?”

“Yeah. Trying to hold that position so long. . .” Getting the scallop out of its bed of quicksand-like ash and muck had been easy. Getting the scallop open had been a two-person job, and he could swear it had closed up tighter in response to the scent of his poison.

Sunny let out a long-suffering sigh and sat up in the water. “I’ll do it.”

At first there was no recognition of what Sunny meant. It took the impetuous command to turn around for Coco to pick up on what Sunny wanted, because when had Sunny ever wanted. . .

Before he could trap himself in a mental cycle, Coco turned and exposed his bare shoulders. He felt Sunny’s hands settle on him. They started at his shoulder blades, just the fingertips, and slid slowly up until Sunny’s fingers curled over his shoulders with palms firm against his back.

Sunny always preferred not to touch with his hands. He would touch food with them, but the rest of the world was always investigated with feelers first. And he had been reluctant to touch Coco since he had realized that Coco could see when ‘I’m not touching you’ was a lie.

Thumbs dug into the sore places between his shoulder blades, and Coco discarded his attempt to overthink the situation. Sunny’s hands felt like acceptance, firm and clear. As if to say of course they were this close. It was there all the time. Coco must already be aware.

Coco was more interested in concentrating on Sunny’s hands rubbing over his shoulders, down to his biceps and back again. The heel of Sunny’s hand massaged around the knot under his shoulder blade. Thumbs worked into pressure points until he felt the tight knots before Sunny’s touch eased them away.

When there was nothing left for Sunny to do and he was left smoothing his hands up and down now-familiar territory, Coco reached up to lay his hands over Sunny’s.

He almost said something about the fact that Sunny was so impatient to push them close to each other again when he had intended to take slow steps, but he could just imagine the indignant outburst that would answer him. That made him smile.

“Thank you,” was enough.

Sunny’s fingers laced together with his. Coco knew he wouldn’t say anything about the physical gap or that fact that it had closed. The sigh at the back of his neck answered him eloquently, even if the only thing Sunny said was, “F’course.”


End file.
